Catch

We are happy to release Catch Team today. Many people use Catch at work and asked us to make Catch easier and more secure for team collaboration. So we added an easy way for a team leader to manage users and data in Catch.

With the web-based Admin Console, the owner of a Catch Team account can:

Manage members: add and remove members, appoint admins, administer passwords and content ownership

Manage company spaces: invite members to a collaboration space, remove members, and transfer space ownership

Monitor usage: see space and storage usage of your team. Your spaces and storage are now combined at the team level so if you have 10 members in your team, you now have an aggregate of 2,000 spaces and 100 GB of total storage!

Add licenses: purchase additional subscription licenses when new members join your team. Since you already have a Catch Team account, it just takes a few clicks to add licenses to your account and your team members won't have to upgrade individually.

The other members of the team continue to use the same and easy to use Catch app on iOS, Android, and the web. They can capture ideas in text, pictures, and voice recordings, share meeting minutes and files, comment on other people's notes, and get things done with collaborative checklists.

If you are a Catch Premier customer, a Catch Pro customer or a Free user, try Catch Team now by clicking here. It's free for 28 days and you can choose between the $144/user/year option or the 5-user license special at $499/year (a 30 percent discount). We recommend the 5-license special to experience the full benefits of Catch Team for collaboration. You can add more licenses at any time. If you do not wish to continue with Catch Team after the 28-day free trial, you can cancel and all the accounts associated with your account will become independent free accounts. Your account itself will go back to the level it was at before the free trial.

Contact us if your company requires even more security, such as remote lock, remote wipe, encryption, micro VPN, or policy management. We have partnered with Samsung, Citrix, and other leading security / Mobile Device Management providers to meet the most stringent enterprise IT requirements.

Many people use Catch at work to easily capture project ideas, meeting minutes, action items, and share them with their project team. They are bringing their own devices to work and using that device and Catch to be more productive. Here at Catch we recognize that this business data needs to be protected.

To make Catch even more secure for enterprise customers we are now a partner in the new Citrix Ready Worx Verified program, Citrix is a leader in data security and enterprise mobility management, and Catch is now Worx-enabled with embedded CitrixMDX Technologies that centralize IT configuration, management, security and control making Catch enterprise ready.  With Catch now Worx-enabled, Citrix customers will be able to:

use Catch with full data security

enjoy a seamless user experience

enable company IT policies, management and access controls

As a Citrix Ready Worx Verified partner our Catch app will soon be made available to over 250,000 existing Citrix enterprise customers and through more than 10,000 Citrix resellers in the Citrix Worx app gallery.

Spaces. Collections of ideas, journals, emerging projects. Everyone finds their own uses for these handy folder-type features in Catch. Today we’re excited to announce some new features that will help you add spaces just when you need them. And now you can organize them on the fly with simple drag and drop. Catch still offers 5 free Spaces but what if you want more than that? Now, whether you only need one additional space or a few, you can buy just the number you want with a single purchase right on your smartphone*, iPad*, or mid-sized Android tablet**. It’s just $.99 for one space, or save 25% and purchase a 4-pack for $2.99.

You can also refer friends right from your mobile device and add more spaces that way.

And we heard you about sorting those spaces! Just press the space you want to move, hold until it pops up, and drag it to its new position. Your newly sorted order will immediately sync across your other devices and the web, or if you’re working offline, the next time you’re online. Learn more here.

Of course you still have the option of subscribing and jumping right to 50, or even 200 spaces. Whatever works best for you!

It's January 15. How are you doing with your New Year's Resolutions?

Every January rolls around full of promise for new beginnings, and we resolve that this will be the year we make that big change.

And therein lies the challenge. Most New Year's resolutions are about major life changes, which can be exciting and invigorating, but are often difficult to put into practice. Research shows that only about 8% of us are successful meeting our goals. When it comes down to it, most of us aren't all that comfortable with change. So the question we asked ourselves is whether Catch could help improve the odds.

We started with the list of the most common resolutions, compiled by Megan Willett at Business Insider, and imagined how we would use Catch to help get closer to success on at least some of them.

Lose weight/get in shape.The biggest challenge with trying to lose weight is staying motivated to eat better and exercise consistently. We agreed that the best motivator is a supporting network of friends and family who can cheer you on when it gets hard and celebrate with you when you see results. So create a space and share it with your trusted support network. Track your progress, report on your activities, and enjoy the feedback from their comments. Even better, attach photos to share your favorite running spot or that new pair of jeans you can now show-off.

Get a new job.Unless you know exactly what you're looking for, it might take a while to find the right company, the right position. In the meantime, look for inspiration around you. Research opportunities, save articles, talk with people about the best places to work. Track all this information in your Job Search space. Use hashtags for following different types of positions or different companies.

Talk to your mom more.Staying in touch with family and faraway friends is really important, and sometimes you need to schedule time for your priorities. Catch Reminders help you do that.

Get organized.The best way to get more organized is to find a simple framework for managing your life. You can use Catch to set up a space for each of the primary areas of your life, such as work, travel, family. Start collecting ideas, inspirations, and to-dos in the appropriate space. Share them with others when you're ready or need some help. You can also use hashtags here for a deeper level of organization. For example, in your Travel space start thinking about your next vacation and save information about hotels, attractions you want to see, packing lists, itineraries and so on.

Read more. But what to read? Be ready when you have time. Capture the URLs of the lists of best books of the year, or best seller lists. We often record interviews with authors from the radio or connect to You Tube videos, and save them in Catch along with information about the book in a space just for keeping track of books, films and music.

Give up a bad habit. Start a new one to take its place. Use Catch to keep track of the things that help you stay committed to your new habit (see #1). For example, give up smoking while you track the progress you make toward running a race.

Learn something new. Catch is a great place to help you learn something new. Create a space and gather information about your new hobby or interest -- articles, vocabulary, reading lists, lectures. Each new note adds more context as you become increasingly knowledgeable, and you can share your information with classmates and other learners as you all tackle this new subject together.

It was a great year!

For us the year began at the end of 2011, with the launch of spaces (initially called "streams"). From a collection of single private notes, Catch blossomed into a tool for gathering inspiration and sharing it among a group of contributors.

Then in August Catch came alive with color, added checklists and made it easier than ever to capture ideas whenever and wherever they strike. The year ended on a high note when Catch was named one of 2012's best productivity apps.

All of this was made possible by you, the people who use Catch to track and manage life's insights. Thank you for your support and your enthusiasm. To those of you who have been with Catch since the beginning in 2010, we appreciate your loyalty. And if you're new to Catch, welcome!

As we look ahead to 2013 we'd love to hear your stories about using Catch. These stories spark innovation and help us establish our vision for the next big thing.

Up until now if you wanted more spaces, you had to visit the Catch.com website. There you can upgrade your free Catch account to a Pro or Premier level subscription.

Starting today you'll be able to upgrade your account right on your Android smartphone directly from Google Play.

Subscription upgrades for iPhones will be available shortly (Apple is taking a look and we'll release the update to iTunes App Store as soon as possible).

Upgrading from a free account to Catch Pro means you'll immediately get 50 spaces, more content, and double the free referral rewards. Upgrade from Pro to Premier and instantly get 200 spaces: ideal for team collaboration.

To purchase a subscription on your Android phone just tap on Settings, and then on the upgrade link. Choose the plan that's right for you and upgrade immediately in Google Play.

You know a customer loves you (or just really, really needs a new feature) when he spends over a year freely writing and maintaining code to bring your app to a new platform and then gives it to you for official use. This is exactly what Pedro Araújo has done for Catch.

We're pleased to announce the Catch Chrome Web Store app that Pedro created is now an official part of the Catch product family and will be maintained as such by our team.

The Catch Chrome Store app is a handy browser short cut (the Catch icon) that takes you from the main Google Chrome browser page directly into your notes at Catch.com.

To use the Catch Chrome Store app, simply:

Open the "Chrome Web Store" and download the app. If you don't already have the Chrome browser, you'll be prompted to download it.

Install the app and sign in to your Catch.com account. If you don't have an account just create one. It's free!

After you've signed in once, you should be taken directly to your notes (bypassing the Catch.com sign-in each time).

Bring friends, family members, and colleagues to Catch and we'll give you a free reward space for each person who joins. Use the spaces for your own note-taking, or invite others to collaborate. It's our way of saying thank you. Invite a friend now »

Activity notification comes to Android

Catch notifies you in-app when a collaborator in one of your spaces adds a note or an attachment or leaves a comment. Now those notices of recent activity will also show up on the notification bar of your Android smartphone. If you have Jelly Bean, you'll also be able to see images linked to your notifications.

Catch 5.0 comes to iPad

The first iteration of Catch 5.0 is now available for iPad in iTunes. Create checklists and reminders, and they'll sync across all your devices. We've also added color to spaces, consistent with iPhone and your web browser. The Capture Wheel is still to come, along with the color picker.

Nasty AK Notepad bug is dead

Checklists, for private or collaborative use, have long been one of the most requested features for Catch. So last month we were thrilled to ship our first version of checklists for Catch on smartphones and the web. Tablets will follow soon - first iPad, then Android.

How do I use checklists?

If you haven't tried the feature yet, making new checklists is simple. Open the capture wheel, and slide your thumb to the check mark on the right. A new note will open with a checklist ready to go.

The best part of checklists is you can share them just by sharing the space they're in. (If you only want to share the checklist and not the rest of the notes in that space, then give it its own space.)

Checklists are for more than just to-do's

Two of our employees are from Texas, and what they miss most is the food. They've created a shared checklist for each Texas city of all the restaurants they definitely want to visit again. They plan to check off the restaurants as they eat their way through the list during an upcoming trip.

We use checklists when testing different Android OS versions to reproduce the same steps, check them off and ensure consistent testing.

Husbands and wives tell us that Catch checklists are great for collaborative shopping lists.

Small, collaborating teams are keeping track of their action items in checklists kept within a shared project space.

Feature ideas for Catch checklists

Here's what we've heard from you so far about what we should add next to this feature.

Make the "new item" text in web browser checklists go away when you click into the field, instead of requiring you to delete it.

Allow you to make a new checklist out of selected items.

Let you clear/mark done and delete multiple items at once.

Let you reorder and sort checklist items in myriad ways, by date to be done, alphabetically, by person to do them, etc.

Remove the "new blank item" from the bottom of the list on mobile.

Let any collaborator delete items from a shared list.

Allow a reminder to be added to an individual check item.

With the latest update a lot of people are signing up for AK Notepad accounts for the first time, and asking about the permissions they give when creating an account.

Last week we posted a summary of the permissions we ask for when a Catch account is created, and many of the same reasons apply for AK Notepad.

Here are the permissions we request, and why we ask for them.

NETWORK COMMUNICATION

Full Internet Access

Allows the app to create network sockets.

Why? AK Notepad offers syncing functionality that allows users to have their notes backed up to Catch.com for access on the web and all of their devices.

STORAGE

Modify/Delete USB Storage Contents; Modify/Delete SD Card Contents

Allows the app to write to the USB storage. Allows the app to write to the SD card.

Why? AK Notepad has an option in Settings to export all of your notes to separate text files on USB storage or SD card.

The following permissions are under the “Hide >>” control in Google Play, as Google considers these permissions to be minor and not of concern to most users.

YOUR ACCOUNTS

Discover Known Accounts

Allows the app to get the list of accounts known by the tablet. Allows the app to get the list of accounts known by the phone.

Why? AK Notepad uses this permission to pre-fill Catch account sign-in forms so the user does not have to type them in.

HARDWARE CONTROLS

Control Vibrator

Allows the app to control the vibrator.

Why? AK Notepad allows the user to optionally have the device vibrate when reminder notifications occur.

NETWORK COMMUNICATION

View Network State

Allows the app to view the state of all networks.

Why? AK Notepad uses this permission to tell whether or not the user’s device has internet connectivity for syncing. This helps us reduce battery usage.

SYSTEM TOOLS

Automatically Start at Boot

Allows the app to have itself started as soon as the system has finished booting. This can make it take longer to start the tablet and allow the app to slow down the overall tablet by always running. This can also make it take longer to start the phone and allow the app to slow down the overall phone by always running.

An [INFOGRAPHIC] blogged by McAfee recently became an instant Internet meme with the headline, "It's 2AM. What are your apps doing?"

We are often asked why we need all those permissions, so we thought we'd take a few minutes to explain each permission, and why we ask you to agree when you use Catch.

Following are the permissions you agree to give Catch when you download the app to your Android phone or tablet, and the reason why we ask for that permission.

HARDWARE CONTROLS

Take pictures and video

Allows the app to take pictures and videos with the camera. This allows the app at any time to collect images the camera is seeing.

Why? Catch allows users to make photo notes.

Record Audio

Allows the app to access the audio record path.

Why? Catch allows users to make voice notes.

YOUR LOCATION

Coarse (Network-based) Location

Access coarse location sources such as the cellular network database to determine an approximate tablet location, where available. Malicious apps may use this to determine approximately where you are.

Why? Catch allows users to tag their notes with location data (latitude and longitude). Coarse location lets Catch get a quick estimate of a note's location.

Fine (GPS) Location

Access fine location sources such as the Global Positioning System on the tablet, where available. Malicious apps may use this to determine where you are, and may consume additional battery power.

Why? Catch allows users to tag their notes with location data (latitude and longitude). Fine location lets Catch get an accurate estimate of a note's location.

NETWORK COMMUNICATION

Full Internet Access

Allows the app to create network sockets.

Why? Catch offers syncing functionality that allows users to have their notes backed up to Catch.com for access on the web and all of their devices.

YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

Read Contact Data

Allows the app to read all of the contact (address) data stored on your tablet. Malicious apps may use this to send your data to other people.

Why? Catch allows users to collaborate easily with other users with shared spaces. Catch offers the option of adding contributors to your spaces by selecting them directly from your Contacts without having to type in email addresses. Catch never accesses the Contacts list without the user's specific direction.

PHONE CALLS

Read Phone State and Identity

Allows the app to access the phone features of the device. An app with this permission can determine the phone number and serial number of this phone, whether a call is active, the number that call is connected to and the like.

Why? Catch lets users play back the audio of their voice notes. Permission to listen for changes to the phone state allows Catch to stop playback if a phone call is incoming. Catch never accesses phone identity information.

STORAGE

Modify/Delete USB Storage Contents; Modify/Delete SD Card Contents

Allows the app to write to the USB storage. Allows the app to write to the SD card.

Why? Catch, by default, stores some user content like photos and voice recordings on USB storage or the SD card, so as not to take up too much internal storage space. Users can change this in Catch's settings if they prefer not to use USB/SD storage for content. Catch also uses USB/SD storage for various temp/cache files.

SYSTEM TOOLS

Prevent Tablet from Sleeping; Prevent Phone from Sleeping

Allows the app to prevent the tablet from going to sleep.

Why? Catch uses this permission to keep the phone in a barely-awake state while a voice recording is ongoing.

Modify Global System Settings

Allows the app to modify the system's settings data. Malicious apps may corrupt your system's configuration.

Why? Catch only reads global system settings, never modifies them. Catch checks the device's "default notification sound" setting so that it can use that as the initial setting for its own reminder note notifications.

The following permissions are under the "Hide >>" control in Google Play, as Google considers these permissions to be minor and not of concern to most users.

YOUR ACCOUNTS

Discover Known Accounts

Allows the app to get the list of accounts known by the tablet. Allows the app to get the list of accounts known by the phone.

Why? Catch uses this permission to pre-fill Catch account sign-in forms so the user does not have to type them in.

HARDWARE CONTROLS

Control Vibrator

Allows the app to control the vibrator.

Why? Catch allows the user to optionally have the device vibrate when reminder notifications occur.

NETWORK COMMUNICATION

View Network State

Allows the app to view the state of all networks.

Why? Catch uses this permission to tell whether or not the user's device has internet connectivity for syncing.

Receive Data from Internet

Allows apps to accept cloud to device messages sent by the app's service. Using this service will incur data usage. Malicious apps could cause excess data usage.

Why? Catch uses Google's cloud messaging service to receive hints that the user's notes on Catch.com have been updated (for example, from the web or another device). This allows Catch to sync and always have up-to-date note content.

SYSTEM TOOLS

Automatically Start at Boot

Allows the app to have itself started as soon as the system has finished booting. This can make it take longer to start the tablet and allow the app to slow down the overall tablet by always running. This can also make it take longer to start the phone and allow the app to slow down the overall phone by always running.

We've given you more spaces for free so you can get the most out ofyour Catch account!

Free accounts, unregistered: create up to 3 free spaces

Free accounts with registration*: create up to 5 free spaces

Catch Pro accounts: create up to 50 free spaces

Catch Premium accounts: create up to 200 free spaces

Use your spaces for private ideas or to share with others.

Collect your ideas together in one place, for better organization or collaboration.

To learn more about how to use your spaces, visit our knowledge base.

*In addition to 2 extra spaces, registering your free account enables sync, and helps to ensure that you'll never lose your important notes, you'll be able to use Catch across multiple platforms, and when there's a problem we can help. Learn More

New look, better idea capture, and Checklists!

Watch the video:

Available now for iPhone, and coming soon for iPad, Android and your favorite browser.

New: Personal and Shared Checklists

Create your own to-do lists, or use your lists to collaborate. When you share your lists with others they can check and uncheck the items, and add new items to the list. You can attach anything to a checklist note, including photos, comments, documents, and reminders.

New: Capture Wheel

Simply touch the screen with your thumb, and the new capture wheel opens and gives you instant access to note creating. Use text, photo, reminders or voice, or make a checklist. No more trying to click on teeny tiny icons.

New: Notifications

Now you can receive visual notifications within the app when someone else adds or deletes a note, comment, photo or document in one of your shared spaces.

Along with these new features, you'll also find:

Reminders and alarms: one of Android users' favorite features is now available for iPhones. Never forget important ideas.

Enhanced design with new icons and colors: now it's easy to tell your spaces apart quickly using color. The new look, including simplified icons, is not only more visually appealing, but lays the foundation for future organizational updates.

Improved place names: add a location to your notes, and you'll find that places with names, like restaurants, will have their names added to your note along with the geotag.

Home is now called My Ideas. It will still be 100% private, and can contain everything you create. If you don't like the name "My Ideas" you can now rename it, just like any other space name.